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Welcome to Critical Distance Centre for Curators (CDCC), a not-for-profit initiative and space dedicated to the support and advancement of curatorial inquiry and practice in Toronto, Canada, and beyond.

OUR MANDATE

Part gallery and publisher, part professional association and network, CDCC exists to: provide opportunities and resources to curators and artists for the production of exhibitions and projects within a critical framework; foster curatorial community and discourse at all levels of professional development; promote education, sustainability, and best practices in curating and exhibition-making; and more.

With a focus on critically engaged, collaborative, and cross-disciplinary practices, underrepresented artists and art forms, and community outreach and education in art and exhibition-making, Critical Distance is an open platform for diverse curatorial perspectives, and a forum for the exchange of ideas on curating and exhibition-making as ways to engage and inform audiences from all walks of life.

OUR STORY

Critical Distance Centre for Curators was founded by independent curator Shani K Parsons and opened at Artscape Youngplace in late 2013 (under our former name, Typology). Established from the beginning as a not-for-profit space devoted to curatorial and artistic experimentation, we devoted our first three years to providing opportunities for curators and artists to mount fully realized exhibitions within a critical framework. In 2016, having established a locally recognized platform for diverse curatorial practices and perspectives, we relaunched under our new name to signal a more focused commitment to the need, voiced by local and national curators, for a truly vital curatorial community—one that both supports emerging and underrepresented curators and advances curatorial practice and inquiry by foregrounding new ideas and critical connections between artists, ideas, objects, and audiences.

As Critical Distance, we continue to produce a wide-ranging annual program of exhibitions and projects supported by the production of original publications, editions, and related events. At the same time we are actively developing new programs in support of the curatorial community at local, national, and international levels. Anyone interested in participating, building, joining, and supporting a truly dedicated space and centre for curating is invited to get involved.

Accessibility
CDCC is located on the third floor of the Artscape Youngplace building at 180 Shaw Street, Toronto, ON M6J 2W5. Artscape Youngplace is fully accessible by Ontario standards, with a wheelchair ramp at the 180 Shaw Street doors, an elevator servicing every floor and a fully accessible washroom on every level. The nearby 63 Ossington bus on the TTC is wheelchair accessible.

Critical Distance provides valuable experience and opportunities to curators, artists, administrators, and arts enthusiasts through our submissions, residency, internship, and volunteer programs. Please see the relevant pages at left for submission and application guidelines.

About the NameWe chose Critical Distance for our new name because it is precisely this distance that affords curators the space to engage critically with the work of another. It is this perspective at a slight remove which fundamentally differentiates the curatorial or critical voice from that of the artist or maker. For more information, click the link above for a discussion on Quora.

Please note that the transition to criticaldistance.ca from typology.ca will be happening over the next few months so this website is subject to change and error. Some links will continue to track back to the TYPOLOGY website which is being preserved as an archive and resource. Past exhibitions and artist/curator profiles in the Registry are in the process of being transferred to this website and links will be updated accordingly. Broken links and typos are inevitable and we would be grateful to be informed if found. Thanks for your patience as we work to improve your online experience at CDCC.